Last mile issue

[tomWU]

Hello!

We are running an innovation project. The aim is to find solutions for last mile issue. It's an issue of transferring a person from a train/bus station to his/her house/workplace. This distance may be covered by walking, but it is time-consuming and difficult in case of a retired person or a person with a burden. It may be covered by car, but it's often hard to find a place for park near bus/train station, to say nothing of traffic jams and pollution. Probably, some vehicles like Segway or GM's EN-V show the direction to solve the issue.
I am interested in your opinion as professional engineers. Which decisions would you propose to solve the problem?

 

[SomptingGuy]

Local, frequent (possibly subsidised) bus.

- Steve

 

[tomWU]

Yes, local bus solves the problem partly. Unfotunately, its efficiency is limited due to few points.
1) Coverage. Bus cannot drive up to each person's house and if it will, it takes a lot of time.
2) Information. Its driver doesn't have the information on when and where are his passengers going. That's why busses often are either empty or overcrowded, if they operate on fixed routes on fixed time. And if we suppose, that a bus is operated depending on passengers flow, thus not on fixed route and time, the problem of agregatting all that data concerning passengers directions emerges.
So, probably, private vehicle would be more effective here than public.

 

[SomptingGuy]

You asked for an opinion, you got mine for free. If you want an argument, that's extra. If you want evidence to back up your opinion, you've come to the wrong place.


- Steve

 

[tomWU]

Yes, Steve, thank you for your opinion, I highly appreciate this! It's a reasoning, I try to critically assess desicions.

 

[MintJulep]

Walk (this is what I do. Distance = 0.7 miles).

Walk - if you walk slowly, start earlier.

Walk - if you have a burden get a granny cart.

Bicycle.

Roller or in-line skates.

Kick scooter (possibly with electric assist).

Taxi.

Kiss-and-ride drop lane.

 

[ornerynorsk]

I'll second the bicycle opinion. There is a good reason half the world moves on bicycles.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[drawoh]

tomWU,

High density housing.

The bus should be able to stop in close vicinity to hundreds or thousands of people.

The next choice would be some system of front door pickup and dropoff. People could phone in to book buses. The system would be expensive.

JHG

 

[GregLocock]

As usual the problem is compounded by an insistence on one size fits all. In a reasonable climate -

Fit people - walk from a bus stop or bike or rollerblade . Actually I look at Razors (scooters) and think, hmm, they're pretty neat, but for grownups you'd need dedicated tracks.

If you've got tons of stuff - taxi

Oldies with lots of time - dial a bus (big, shared taxis).

None of that requires any new technology, just good city planning.



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[cranky108]

Your issue on a bus stopping in front of everybodys home. I can tell you the school bus does that, and the school seems to be able to afford it. And with text messaging, why can't the driver change his stops with the proper information displayed on a screen?

If the problem is the last mile, then why do busses have bike frames on them?

The problem I have is it is difficult to carry large things on a bus (like lumber, or a cart of goods from the store).

 

[TheTick]

Shuttle van/shared taxi that drops passengers anywhere within a given range. Shuttle passengers must verify they are recently debarked train passengers. Limitations on baggage.

Shared bike programs do not work.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Roller Skates

Segway

Large plants have bicycles that everyone uses - just leave it where you get off - pick up that one or another when you leave.

My g-kids have electric Razor scooters. Easily good for a couple of miles, go like hell, can probably carry a decent load (might need an adult version) and FUN to drive. Hell on snow or ice!!

 

[SomptingGuy]

My bad perhaps in mixing up my first answer.

Life for those without cars here is bus (max 100m) to bus stop. Bus takes to either destination or train station. Train station connects to THE WORLD.

My parents thought about moving to near where I live because of this brilliant infrastructure.

- Steve

 

[jmw]

Trouble with public services is when residents get concerned about metro projects bringing the criminals to the suburbs. And home again with their booty.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[cranky108]

I think to connect to the world, you need to take a bus to the airport.

Outside of a few congested places, it is better to have a car. Except if you are traveling a long distance.

If you wish to push people out of there cars, you not only need better mass transit, but higher driving age.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Moving sidewalks.

 

[SomptingGuy]

International travel is as difficult as local (car-less) travel. You have to be able to carry everything. National travel suits car driving just fine - if the SO wants to take ten pairs of shoes instead of the usual eight, she can just fling them in the car.

- Steve

 

[tomWU]

Thank you for your answers!
1. Small personal vehicles like segways, scooters and roller skates are nice. They help to cover small distances and do not require much road and park place as cars. If we only could somehow surmount their lacks. Imagine someone drove to a subway station by one of these means and now have to continue his trip by train. He can
a) Carry them along (except for Segway). Carrying roller skates or a scooter along is uncomfortable. It requires much space and adds an additional weight to a burden.
b) Enter the train on scooter, segway or with roller skates worn on. In case of segway and roller skates it is problematic due to increased required space and discomfort for other passengers, especially in peak hours. Maybe it could be solved in future by adapting public transport infrastructure for such small personal vehicles.
c) Left them (park) at the train station and continue the trip. But in that case it's not possible to use them to continue the trip after the train.

And here comes the idea of sharing them. As told TheTick, shared bike programs do not work. If you get a bike at share point, you have to bring it back to some other share point. So, you can't use the bike to get to your home and park it for the night (or you can, but it would cost you a lot of money and it's not the idea).

What if these segways, bikes and scooters could somehow be returned to the sharing point after you used them to get to your home. For example, segway, which could automatically return to train station after it has carried you to your house/work.
Do you think it's feasible without high costs???

2. Drawoh and Cranky108, you told about intelligent systems for bus routing. It's interesting! Could you imagine such system? I mean, should it be some rough route for the bus or it should lay the route in real time, processing requests, how would passengers know, when they have to be at the bus stop, how to prioritize requests and divide them between buses?

3. CorBlimeyLimey. Idea of moving sidewalks is fantastic. Maybe they will be everywhere in the future. Do you have some experience with similar or analogue systems? Is there technology to make them for low cost? (Maybe it's possible to build them right now in cities like Masdar?)

 

[SomptingGuy]

... was on a very late train home from London on Saturday night. I wondered why the chap who boarded at Horsham didn't sit down, given that it was a good half hour to SmallPenis from there. When we got to SmallPenis it turned out that he had one of those folding bikes. Absolutely facinating to see him rebuild it on the platform and then ride off on it.

- Steve

 

[SnTMan]

Still wating for tranporters. Beam me...

Regards,

Mike